All articles by Patrick Frater – Page 9
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Edinburgh replaces 2046 with Untold Scandal
The forthcoming EdinburghInternational Film Festival (EIFF) is to change its closing night film, endingweeks of squabbling and speculation about Wong Kar-wai's2046.In a statement, the EIFF announced that it would replace the previouslyscheduled 2046 with Untold Scandal, a sumptuous 17thcentury retelling of the Liaisons Dangereuses story by hot Korean director E ...
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Venice to host amfAR benefit on September 3
The Venice festival will once again play host to a majoramfAR AIDS-research benefit evening, to be held on Sept 3.The event, at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini on the island ofSan Giorgio Maggiore, will be co-chaired by Jeremy Irons and ScarlettJohanssen.The evening is presented by upmarket jewellery firm Bulgari,and co-sponsored by ...
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Paton named deputy chairman at DDA
Well-known film publicist, Chris Paton has joined DennisDavidson Associates (DDA) as its deputy chairman.Paton left Premiere PR, where he was co-managing director,after Cannes this year. He joined Premiere three years ago when Corbett &Keene and the UK arm of Falco Ink, where he was co-managing director, wereacquired by David Willing's ...
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China features to colour Pusan festival
Ten new films from mainland China will colour this autumn'sPusan International Film Festival (7-15 Oct), while its burgeoning projectmarket Pusan Promotion Plan (PPP) will expand to 23 titles, from 18 last year."It looks set to be an exceptionally strong year forChinese films," PPP director and Pusan selector Jay Jeon told ...
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High profile Korean slate wins Happinet funding
Korean distributor-turned producerChungeorahm Film has signed an investment deal with Japanese distributor HappinetPictures worth $1.7m of production finance.The deal spans all six films onChungeorahm's intial production slate including disaster movie The River, by Memories Of Murder-director Bong Joon-ho, Hong Sang-soo's untitledsixth film, My Tutor Friend-directorKim Kyung-hyung's forthcoming RomanticComic Book and ...
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Venice chief gorges on feast of choices
The Venice Film Festival'straditionally late announcement of its line-up means that other festivals suchas Edinburgh, Montreal and especially neighbour Locarno have had to secondguess which films the powerful Venice event will select. This year the MarcoMueller effect may be adding to that conundrum.Venice's Mueller appears to besuffering all the pains ...
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Six young directors chosen for Cannes Residence
TawfikAbu-Wael, the Palestinian director who made a splash in the Cannes Critics'Week section this year with Thirst (Atash) is one of six youngfilm-makers selected by the Cannes festival for its residential trainingprogramme, Cannes Residence.Selectedby a committee headed by director Marion Vernoux, the other five interns areCelia Galan Julve from Spain, ...
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Unifrance re-elects Menegoz as president
MargaretMenegoz has been re-elected president of Unifrance Film International, theFrench film export support body.Menegoz was appointed acting president in Februarylast year following the sudden death of Daniel Toscan Du Plantier. Unanimouslyelected, Menegoz now has a two year mandate.Theorganisation has three vice-presidents: head of the feature film producerscommittee Philippe Carcassonne of ...
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DVD market to peak in 2007-08
Home entertainment softwarerevenues will peak at $60bn in 2008 before sliding slightly to $57bn in 2010 asthe DVD sector replaces VHS then settles into a pattern associated with amature industry, according to forecasts released yesterday by Informa Media. The figures compare with a total home entertainment market worth $52bn in ...
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Locarno to explore film and journalism
The Locarno festival (4-14 Aug) will feature a sidebar onthe ever-changing relations between journalism and film, it was announcedyesterday.Speaking in London at a reception the festival'sartistic director Irene Bignardi said that the topical section will span thelength of film history and include a rare piece of 1899 Georges Melies dramaabout ...
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Home entertainment to drive growth of film industry
The global film business,driven by an expanding home entertainment sector, is set for annual growth of7.5% over the next five years. By 2008 it will be worth $108bn, compared with$75bn last year, according to consultancy and research firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers(PWC) in its annual Global Entertainment & Media Outlook (2004-2008).The growth that ...
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FilMart news: Arclight wraps up fresh Beautiful Boxer sales
Beautiful Boxer, the Thai sex change film which plays at next week's Outfest Lesbian and Gay festival, has wrapped up a string of new sales for sales agent Arclight Films.Announced at Hong Kong's FilMart, new sales include a deal with Regent Entertainment's Regent Releasing for US and Canada, with Mikado ...
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FilMart news: FilMart opens with optimistic bounce
Hong Kong's FilMart (23-25June) got off to a brisk start yesterday with organisers claiming a rise invisitor numbers matched by local industry spirits similarly on the up.At an opening ceremony attended by Asian superstar Tony Leung, FilMart'sexecutive director Fred Lam said that there was a 10% rise in visitor numbers,with ...
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Tartan stirs up revolution over Nine Songs
British distributor TartanFilms announced yesterday that it intends to sue UK producer Revolution Films over Nine Songs, the sexually explicit relationship movie directed byMichael Winterbottom.Tartan said that it will suefor breach of contract and loss of profits amounting to some $3.6m (£2m) in theUK. Tartan said that it will also ...
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Starz, RealNetworks team for internet PPV service
UScable programming giant Starz Encore and software house RealNetworks havelaunched an internet-based pay-per-view (PPV) service.The service, dubbed Starz Ticket on Real Movies, willbe a subscription service allowing web users to legally download an unlimitednumber of films for a $12.95 monthly fee.Movielink, the download site launched by five of theHollywood studios, ...
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French cinema admissions recover
Theatrical admissions inFrance are running at levels 11% higher than last year according to latestfigures.According to the Centre National de la Cinematographie (CNC) some 83.5 millionstickets were sold in the five months to the end of May 2004. And over a runningyear the figures are 183 million, a 3% improvement ...
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Canal Plus sells off Studio Expand companies
CanalPlus has sold off five companies that previously made up the lightentertainment division of its Studio Expand, TV production group.ProductionsDMD, KM and CALT are being sold back to their founders; Adventure LineProductions is being taken over by JAP, a company representing Teleimages and agroup of private investors. The fifth company ...
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Aaltra takes Transylvania audience prize
Belgian road movie Aaltrawas the most popular film with audiences at the Transylvania Film Festival (May28-June 6), the growing Romanian event now in its third year.The festival's officialfirst prize went to Dias De Santiago, a Peruvian film directed by JosueMendez about a young soldier who has difficulty adjusting to real ...
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Babelsberg studio sale nears conclusion
Thelong-drawn out process of selling the historic Babelsberg studios near Berlincould be drawing to a conclusion.VivendiUniversal, the debt laden French group which has owned the facility since 1992,has fielded bids and is understood to have whittled these down to two or three.The likely favourites are Studio Hamburg - the production ...
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MIPCOM to launch DVD awards
TheMIPCOM TV programmes market is to launch a series of awards for innovation inDVD content at its forthcoming show (4-8 October).Organisedin partnership with the DVD Association (DVDA, USA) and the International VideoFederation (IVF) the prizes will be awarded in seven categories: TV series(English-language); TV series (original version non-English); children/youthfiction; children/youth ...